Fair Play star Alden Ehrenreich and writer-director Chloe Domont said they have been approached by many viewers who describe similar experiences to those portrayed in the film. The pic premiered at Sundance and is streaming on Netflix, so they have had many such encounters in 2023.
“At Sundance, the whole world there was very interesting,” Ehrenreich shared Saturday at Deadline’s Contenders Film Los Angeles. “You’re walking down the street and having people come up to you. This woman came up to me and said, ‘Me and my husband work together at this place.’ She makes more money than him. They were secretly dating and didn’t tell anybody. ‘This is our story.’”
Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor play Luke and Emily, a couple working together at a financial firm. When Emily gets a promotion Luke was expecting for himself, it puts a strain on both their relationship and careers.
“I’ve had so many women send me long emails of their personal stories of how they relate to being Emily,” Domont said. “There’s nothing more rewarding than having someone come up to you at the end of your film and saying, ‘I feel seen.’”
Domont said she’s also witnessed the film provoke couples in relationships.
“The most exciting thing is I’ve seen couples who’ve seen the movie together and you see them talking about it after,” Dumont said. “Then the guy will say something and the woman’s like, ‘Oh, that’s what you thought?’ You just know it’s going to be a great car ride home.”
Ehrenreich said the reason the film can be so provocative is that “it’s not a treatise. It’s an emotional expression of, I think, Chloe’s feelings and what she’s been through. So it had that ring of humanity to it, and that made it much more exciting and dangerous.”
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Domont said she was already a fan of Ehrenreich’s work prior to Hail, Caesar! When they met, Ehrenreich sealed the deal “because he never judged the character. I knew that was the way in. And I never judged the character when talking to him. That wasn’t going to be the most interesting version if we both coming in judging him.”
For the role of Emily, Dynevor’s success in Netflix’s Bridgerton put her on Domont’s radar.
“Emily is a rising star in the world of finance,” Domont said. “So it was important to me to find a rising star. [Dynevor] had that buzz coming off Bridgerton, but she hadn’t made a big splash in the feature space. That felt very on brand to Emily.”
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Check back Monday for the panel video.
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